NMSU Museum exhibit reveals Native American artists’ reflections

Photographer Will Wilson is among the artists who will display their work at the New Mexico State University Museum as part of the exhibit "As We See It - Contemporary Native American Photographers" starting with an opening reception on Thursday, Jan. 26. The show runs through the end of April.(Photo: Courtesy photo)

LAS CRUCES - Ninety-five works by eight contemporary Native American photographers and filmmakers will be on display starting this week at the New Mexico State University Museum.

The museum will host an opening reception for the exhibition “As We See It - Contemporary Native American Photographers,” from 5-7 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 26 at the museum, 1280 E. University Ave. The show will run through the end of April.

The reception is free and open to the public. Light refreshments will be served.

“The work reveals the complexity of Native identity in the 21st century and the sophisticated understanding of the power of representation,” said Anna Strankman, Curator of Collections and Exhibits at the University Museum. “Through the artists' medium of choice — photography and video — contemporary stories are told creating space for continuing cultural conversations and reflections.”

Photographer Will Wilson, who will have 10 pieces in the show, is among the artists who will display their work. He created several projects, including his “Critical Indigenous Photographic Exchange” (CIPX) and “Auto Immune Response”. Wilson has won a number of prizes, including the Native American Fine Art Fellowship from Eiteljorg Museum in Indiana. He lives in Santa Fe, where he is the head of the photography program at Santa Fe Community College.

In his statement for the “Critical Indigenous Photographic Exchange,” he wrote in part “It is my hope that these Native American photographs will represent an intervention within the contentious and competing visual languages that form today’s photographic canon. These alone — rather than the old paradigm of assimilation — can form the basis for a reimagined vision of who we are as Native people.”

“As We See It — Contemporary Native American Photographers,” has traveled to Russia and was among three concurrent exhibitions at 516 ARTS in Albuquerque for PhotoSummer 2016. After leaving NMSU, the show will travel to the Alaska State Museum in Juneau.